The situation
UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) new five-year strategy sets out our ambition to reduce grant processing times by at least 50% by 2031.
We will achieve this through both automation and staff expertise and working in partnership with researchers and research organisations.
At the same time, we know that application volumes for some funding opportunities are very high, resulting in intense competition and low success rates.
Alongside this, generative artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly offers both opportunities and challenges for the grant application process. It might assist in both the writing and the reviewing of grant applications, but it also raises questions about privacy and the integrity of the review process.
What we are doing
UKRI is evolving its assessment processes to respond to these important issues and deliver a better service to the researchers we support and to the public who trust us to invest in the best research and innovation.
Professor Sir Ian Chapman, UKRI CEO, said:
Research and innovation are changing rapidly. New technologies, including generative AI, are transforming how applications are developed, while demand for funding continues to grow.
UKRI is adapting now to ensure we can make faster decisions while continuing to identify the people and ideas with the greatest potential to advance knowledge, improve lives and drive growth.
Our goal is simple: a funding system that is faster, fairer and ready for the future, while keeping expert human judgement at the heart of every decision.
From October 2026, UKRI is bringing together a set of eight measures to:
- speed up decisions
- reduce unnecessary burdens on applicants and reviewers
- maintain robust funding processes in the context of the ongoing development of AI
The measures we are adopting
The measures that we are adopting are:
- more actively using demand management for selected funding applications where volumes are expected to be high, by working in partnership with research organisations
- focusing funding for strategic government and societal priorities (priority bucket 2) on larger and longer-term investments to reduce the burden on applicants while supporting strategic outcomes
- empowering UKRI Programme Directors and Opportunity Leads to use assessment approaches that best reflect the aims, desired outcomes and scale of individual funding opportunities
- using in-person verification, such as interviews, for higher-risk awards where additional assurances are required
- increasing the use of Distributed Peer Review (DPR) for suitable high-volume opportunities across UKRI, building on promising trials of DPR by research councils such as ESRC and BBSRC
- testing an initial triage of applications by UKRI staff, including staff-led desk rejection, supported by the UK Metascience Unit
- trialling a weighted multi-criteria assessment approach to better balance considerations of excellence with the strategic aims of each funding opportunity
- exploring the safe use of AI-assisted assessment, supported by appropriate controls and safeguards, starting with a retrospective trial with the UK Metascience Unit to compare what AI would have concluded from past applications against the decisions that were made
Using the eight measures more consistently and proactively, combined with complementary action by applicants and their institutions, will:
- improve the timeliness of assessment, and help reduce application processing times
- relieve pressures on the expert review system
- strengthen confidence in funding decisions
Principles
UKRI will undertake these changes in accordance with the principles of:
- partnership with applicants, research organisations and research offices
- paying close attention to emerging evidence for the effectiveness of these measures, backed up by the capabilities of the UK Metascience Unit
- keeping a keen eye on the EDI implications of any changes, in line with UKRI’s Public Sector Equality Duty
- maintaining the centrality of human judgment to funding decisions
This is a fast-moving area, and the optimum system will require a portfolio of tools, not just one solution.
We want to work with researchers and research institutions to shape an assessment system that helps us all advance knowledge, drive growth and improve the lives of the UK public.
UKRI’s work in this area has attracted attention from funding agencies around the world.
Partnering with other countries
We are now partnering with several other countries to share our learnings and develop new approaches together, including working with:
- partners in Canada, Namibia and Switzerland on desk-rejection
- funding organisations in the US, Germany and Canada on DPR
Email fundingpolicy@ukri.org if you have any feedback.
Further information
Read more about the changes on:
You can find how applications will be managed and assessed by referring to the specific funding opportunity page.
UKRI’s assessment process must deliver consistent quality while balancing speed, fairness, and the burden placed on applicants, their institutions, reviewers, and UKRI’s own administrative resource constraints.
UKRI’s investment in the UK Metascience Unit, in partnership with the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, is enabling a programme of in-house and multi-funder experiments that are rapidly building the evidence base on effective funding practices.